


So many adventures, we'll never get bored

by EllaYuki



Category: Fairy Tail
Genre: (THERE IS MENTION OF BLLEEDING AND BURNING AS A WAY TO STOP IT IN ONE CHAPTER SO BEWARE), (mostly), Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Developing Relationship, F/M, Nalu Week, Nalu Week 2018, POV Alternating, Post-Canon, Pre-Relationship, Spoilers for the final arc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-08
Updated: 2018-08-08
Packaged: 2019-06-23 22:09:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 4,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15616080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EllaYuki/pseuds/EllaYuki
Summary: Life goes on, and Natsu and Lucy carry on being themselves in spite of what the world and the Fates put them through.





	1. Day 1 - Fascination/Apathy

**Author's Note:**

> Finally decided to post my entries for this year's Nalu Week here, too.   
> Each chapter is one Day/entry.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lucy gives Natsu part of her draft of the book based on their adventures to read and is unexpectedly surprised.

Lucy hadn’t thought much when she first gave Natsu the rough draft of the first fight scene in her book to read. The most she’d though he’d do is skim through and tell her it was either lame or, if she was lucky, give some suggestions as to where the battle needed more…  _umpf_. What she had thought was that it would take him a week at least to read the five pages she gave him.

She  _hadn’t_  expected to wake up the following morning to Natsu’s impatient foot tapping from where he was sitting at the edge of her bed.

‘What are you doing here so early?’ she asks, bleary-eyed, stifling a yawn. She looks around, vaguely noting Happy’s absence, and the fact that, going by the light coming from the window, it’s barely the crack of dawn. She sits up, a little more alert. ‘Did something happen?’

Natsu looks at her sharply, his gaze pinning her down and making her squirm. She hates it when that happens, to be honest. 'Wh-what?’ she asks, wary.

After a long beat of silence, Natsu lifts one of his hands, and Lucy sees what he’s holding. The pages aren’t as neat as when she gave them to him the previous evening. An eyebrow raises almost into her hairline.

'You read it? Already?’ She knows she sounds incredulous, but she  _is_. Natsu doesn’t really care all that much about her writing, so him being here, now, holding those pages that look like he’s leafed through them a few times, is surprising to say the least.

'More,’ is what he finally says. 'There’s  _more_ , right?’

She blinks at how earnest he sounds, how… desperate? That can’t be, surely.

‘More?’ she asks, because it really needs clarifying. 'More what? More of the story, or more of the fight scene?’

'Both!’ he exclaims as he gets in her face. 'The fight scene was  _awesome!_  But I don’t know  _who won!_  You can’t just not tell me how it ends, that’s just cruel, Lucy! And  _also!_  I wanna know about these guys! The main character -it  _is_  the main character fighting the demon, right? of course it is- is so cool, and her friends are awesome, and I need to know more!’

He’s so close now, Lucy’s gone cross-eyed looking at him, and there’s a huge pleading grin on his face. Lucy’s breath hitches.

She takes a deep breath and, without a word (and with great difficulty), she gets out of bed and crosses the room to her desk.

She looks back at Natsu, who’s still sitting on her bed, looking expectantly at her, and then turns back to the papers on her desk. She hesitates a moment, wondering, considering, and then she picks up the bundle with the other chapters she’s finished the rough draft of.

She paces back towards the bed and gently presses the papers into Natsu’s hands.

'Please be careful with these, I don’t have a copy of them,’ she tells him, reminding him of the incident with her first book. 'This is the story up until the chapter I gave you yesterday, it’s all I’ve written so far. It’s not much yet…’

Natsu looks at the stack, then back up at Lucy, and then scoots further up the bed until he’s resting with his back against the wall. Once upon a time, Lucy would have been livid at how casually he takes up her space but nowadays, it's… she’s gotten used to it, and there are times when it feels comforting. (They’re alive, they’re  _still alive_.)

Once Natsu’s settled in and has started reading, Lucy starts going about her morning routine. She chooses her outfit for the day, cleans up her desk a bit, and then showers. (She tells him to not even dare come in, but his nose is buried so far into her writing, she might as well have spoken to a wall.)

When she comes out of the bathroom, all dressed up, her hair in twin plaits, Natsu’s about two thirds done, and Lucy has to pick her jaw up from the floor at that.

'I see you like it,’ she muses, mostly to herself, but it catches Natsu’s attention. His head snaps up and his eyes are basically glittering.

'This is  _so good,_ Lucy,’ he tells her, a tinge of fascination in his voice. 'You should add a couple more fight scenes to it, but otherwise, it’s great!’

 _I’m not blushing_ , she tells herself fiercely as her cheeks heat up something awful.  _I’m just being stupid, is all!_

She clears her throat and looks away, turns towards her desk. 'I do have a few more planned, yes,’ she says and hears an excited  _whoop_  from behind her.

When she peeks over her shoulder, Natsu is back to reading, bright grin firmly in place.

 _Really now,_  she thinks to herself, as she hides her own grin,  _I’d really expected him to be indifferent about it. This is a surprise, indeed._ She sits down and pulls closer the notebook with the story’s outline, wondering where and whether she could fit one more fight scene in.


	2. Day 2 - Sanctum/Squalor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lucy isn’t pleased with how Natsu and Happy ruined all her hard work cleaning their house.

There are some who might think he and Happy live in pure and utter squalor.

Well, it might not be far from the truth in some ways, their house being full to the brim with numerous mementos from missions (even more so after Lucy has joined Fairy Tail and Natsu has made a proper team for himself) and other random stuff thrown about, but he likes to think that the insanity adds to the house’s overall personality.

‘I cleaned this place  _two weeks ago,’_  Lucy almost yells, which Natsu thinks is unwarranted. ‘How is it such a mess already? How? We were gone ten days, so explain to me how you two managed to cause this kind of a mess in the other four?’ Her hands are planted firmly on her hips, and the look on her face is thunderous. Natsu privately thinks she’s taken lessons in scariness from Erza. He shudders at the thought.

‘Sorry,’ he says, scratching at his cheek and looking to the side. He expects to see Happy there, standing next to him in solidarity, but the Exceed is nowhere in sight.  _Hmpf. Traitor,_ he thinks grudgingly _._

Lucy sighs, eyes closed, and shakes her head. ‘You do know I don’t clean this place up because I have nothing better to do, right?’ she asks after a long moment of silence. Natsu looks up at her and tilts his head. ‘You keep so many memories here, so many little bits and pieces of our adventures, that I can’t help wanting them to be properly preserved. But you!’ she bends over and jabs a finger into his chest, 'you seem intent on burying it all under all this mess.’

With her free hand, Lucy makes a big, sweeping gesture towards the room. Natsu looks around them, and for the first time, he notices. Meatball sauce on the collar of the maid outfit in the corner, balled up tissues covering the little crystal collection from Stella Kingdom, a couple of shirts covering most of his memento board. And that’s not even counting the clothes and bits and bobs and food containers everywhere. He remembers how spotless the place was when Lucy had been done with the place.

It’s a rare thing for him to feel embarrassed, even rarer to feel guilty, but he does now. He can feel heat that isn’t caused by his magic crawling up the back of his neck.

'You’re right,’ he says, 'Sorry, Lucy.’

Lucy sighs again and hangs her head, shakes it. ‘Come on,’ she says, extending a hand to him. ‘Help me clean up this mess. Then we’ll go eat at the guild.’

Natsu looks at her for a long moment, hesitant, before he takes her hand and lets her help him up.


	3. Day 3 - Bedtime/Waking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lucy has gotten used to going to bed by herself and waking up to Natsu wrapped around her.

She hates admitting the fact that she’s gotten used to this.

It’s not the first time Lucy wakes up to a face-full of pink hair and arms around her waist, it’s not the first time the owner of said hair and arms has snuck into her room, into her bed at some point during the night. Hell, it’s not the first time this week (and it’s only Wednesday).

But she’s gotten used to it.

She welcomes it even, especially on the days when she wakes up from nightmares of skies on fire, of empty streets, of horrid, terrifying possibilities. She takes comfort, if only for a few minutes at a time, in his warm presence, in his being here, still.

There are times when she knows, when she goes to bed, that he’ll come to her (with or without Happy). His mood is just the tiniest bit off throughout the day, his eyes just that bit more wild, and she knows to let her window open (because it’s always through the window that he comes in when he comes at night, and she absolutely refuses to let herself be embarrassed by the things her mind drudge up because of it).

She falls asleep to a big, empty, mostly cold bed, and she wakes up wrapped up in warmth and the scent of ash.

This morning is normal now. She opens her eyes and his faces is mere inches away, relaxed in sleep, making him look younger than he is, more innocent. Lucy raises a hand slowly, carefully, and brushes a few strands of hair from his forehead.

He’s cute, she allows herself to think. When he sleeps like this, he’s really cute.

As though her thoughts were said out loud, Natsu’s arms tighten around her a fraction, and his face contorts into a small frown, before he blinks bleary eyes open. Lucy holds her breath, her fingers still in his hair.

‘Mmmornin’, Lucy,’ he says around the beginning of a yawn. He closes his eyes again and rubs his face into her pillow. It’s extremely endearing.

‘Good morning,’ she answers, smile on her face. She tugs lightly on a lock of his hair (it’s soft, and kind of warm) and he nuzzles at the pillow some more. 'Come on, sleepyhead, we should get up and go to the guild. It’s high time we went on a job.’ That gets his attention.

He opens one eye that focuses on her, and for a moment, Lucy feels pinned into place.

'Breakfas’ first,’ he mumbles after a few seconds, and the breath Lucy hadn’t realised she’d been holding startles out of her on a laugh.

'Yep, breakfast first.’


	4. Day 4 - Virtuous/Wicked

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No matter how hard he tries, Natsu can’t imagine a Lucy who would be anything but **good**.

Once, while on a mission, someone had asked him what he’d do if Lucy ever betrayed him, betrayed everything they stood for.

Natsu had scoffed at that at the time at the ridiculousness and hadn’t actually given it any thought. He also hadn’t given it any thought when that other Lucy had appeared and told them all sorts of horrible things about their future that made everyone (even the actual Lucy, well,  _his_ Lucy, the one from his timeline, the one that still had her arm and her guild mark) doubt her for a while.

He doesn’t know why, but he thinks about it now, as he watches her sleep from across the campfire.

It’s a random thought. What  _would_ he do if Lucy would ever turned bad?

And for the life of him, Natsu can’t imagine such a time, such a world.

It’s weird, because for some reason, he can imagine some of his other friends doing it maybe, like Erza, or that idiot Gray, or even Mira if she’s pissed enough at the world. He can imagine scenarios like that. He  _knows_ it would never happen, of course he does, he would never doubt it, but he  _can_ imagine what it could be like.

But he can’t with Lucy.

Sure, she can be vindictive as hell on occasion, and her temper can match Erza’s any day, but he can’t even form the vaguest idea of her being anything other than  _good_.

‘Natsu?’ he hears, as if from far away, and it snaps him out of his thoughts. Lucy is leaning on her elbows, cheeks pink, eyes still droopy with sleep. There’s something about the way the light from the campfire plays on her hair and reflects in her eyes. '’S’there something wrong?’

He tries imagining that mouth twisted in a sneer, those eyes cold, her voice full of disdain, and he can’t.

He just.  _Can’t_.

'Nope,’ he answers, grinning at her. 'Was just about to go to sleep.’

She pushes herself into a sitting position qt that. Rubs at an eye with the heel of a hand.

'So it’s my turn to stand watch,’ she says around a yawn. Natsu can tell she can barely keep her eyes open.

He stands up from where he’s been leaning against a tree and moves his sleeping bag next to hers. Lucy’s eyes widen at that.

'Wha-’ she starts, but he just drops down next to her and makes himself comfortable. Pulls her back down.

'We should both sleep,’ he tells her. 'If we want an early start. And anyway, if anything comes near our camp, I’ll hear it and wake up.’

Lucy looks at him for a long, confused moment, before she lets herself get comfy, too. He can hear Happy mumbling from somewhere around her stomach, but his friend hasn’t woken up, and Natsu knows he probably won’t until it’s light out.

'So will you tell me what’s going on through that head of yours?’ Lucy asks after a short while.

Natsu looks at her. She’s flat on her back, hands clutching at her blanket, worried eyes meeting his in the low light. He gives into the sudden impulse to tug on a lock of her hair.

'It’s nothing. Was just thinking that Lucy is Lucy after all.’

She looks at him bewildered and embarrassed. 'The hell is that? You’re such a weirdo.’

'Look who’s talking,’ he says, and tugs on her hair again.


	5. Day 5 - Blessing/Omen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Even after everything they’ve survived, Lucy still feels like something worse yet may still happen.

She’s had a bad feeling about this from the start.

‘Stop worrying so much, nothing bad’s going to happen,’ Natsu tells her flippantly, and it honestly makes the hair on her arms and the back of her neck stand on end. It’s feels like an omen, it feels like he’s tempting the Fates.

She bites her tongue, doesn’t say anything, and they move forward in to the cave they’ve decided to explore while the rest of their team search the forest and the town.

She had though that after everything, after dragons and monsters and Zeref and Acnologia and Natsu almost vanishing from the world, that nothing would scare her all that much anymore. But there is something about this mission that freaks her out the longer it lasts.

Yes, she’s aware that it’s most likely going to be fruitless, that they might never finish it, it’s not called the “Hundred-Year Quest” for nothing. But with each passing day, it just feels like something bad is going to happen, worse than anything they’ve ever faced before, and she can’t shake the feeling, and she can’t help worrying.

And every time Natsu tells her to stop worrying so much, it’s like she can see the hands of the Fates wrapping tighter and tighter around his throat, and she wants to scream at him to stop being so damn reckless, to stop thinking he’s unbeatable, to remember that he’s damn lucky he’s even still here at all. Because she knows full well that there was a chance that her rewriting of the book wouldn’t have worked.

She still remembers turning around and finding that street empty, Natsu nowhere in sight, and she still wakes up sobbing from nightmares where he never comes back.

A sounds comes from in front of them, deeper into the cavern, a dull roar, something that rattles her bones and sets her teeth on edge. She grabs at Natsu’s shirt, but doesn’t stop walking. That niggling sensation at the back of her head that says this isn’t going to end well gets louder but she ignores it, steps onward.

Natsu throws her a look from the corner of his eye. ‘That sounded nasty,’ he points out, going for casual but missing by an inch when he can’t quite hide the excitement from his voice.

‘Whatever it is,’ Lucy says, keeping her eyes forward, trying not to jump at the way the shadows their lanterns cast, ‘I just hope it won’t try to eat us.’

‘Well it can try, but I’ll burn it to a crisp before that can happen!’

The huge grin he gives her manages to take the edge off her nerves a little bit, and she can’t help smiling back. It’s funny how just his smile can calm her down just enough.

She lets go of his shirt and slides her hand how his arm, taking his hand in hers. She squeezes it gently when he throws her a questioning glance, but otherwise neither of them pull away, and Lucy appreciates that she can take comfort in such a simple thing without having to explain her fears. She appreciated that he understands when she needs him to just hold her hand.

There’s another roar, and it shakes the walls again, and Lucy swallows past the knot in her throat.  _It’s going to be alright,_  she tells herself.  _We’re going to be alright_. And she just hopes she hasn’t just jinxed them, she just hopes, prays for even the smallest of blessings from the heavens.

She’s pretty sure they will need it.


	6. Day 6 - Sensation/Numb

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lucy gets wounded in battle and it freezes Natsu’s blood in his veins like never before.

There’s a giant, gaping hole in Lucy’s side and for a moment, time stands still for Natsu.

For a moment, one endless second, he sees double, he sees two Lucys overlapping, both gasping in excruciating pain, both looking up at him with a resigned smile on their lips. One is wrapped in a dark cloak and missing an arm, and she’s dead dead  _dead_  already and Natsu feels numb, feels cold inside, like never before.

Then Lucy, the real one, not the ghost of a girl who doesn’t exist anymore, starts falling, knees buckling, his name half formed on her lips as she struggles to draw breath.

And time starts flowing again, and Natsu rushes forward, desperate to catch her.

His hands are instantly covered in blood as he tries to cover the wound, to staunch the bleeding, to do  _something,_ and he’s already yelling for Wendy.

But Wendy’s at the other end of the clearing, and she’s fighting two opponents twice her size, and Natsu knows she probably won’t make it in time. And Natsu is overcome with fear and rage and despair, because he can’t go through this again. Not again, not ever again.

‘Hold on,’ he tells her, cradling Lucy as best as he can, one hand still on the wound, brushing the hair out of her face with the other. 'Come on, Lucy, you’re going to be fine, you’ll see, Wendy’s gonna be here any minute, just hold on.’

Lucy gasps for breath, but her eyes are open and fixed on him. 'It’s okay,’ she manages to say through trembling, crimson-stained lips, and no, no, it’s  _not_ , it will never be okay. Natsu’s vision blurs. He lets out a roar of Wendy’s name, more dragon cry than human shout, makes himself heard by everyone, makes the very ground beneath them shudder, before his attention is back on Lucy at her tiny wince.

He has to do something to stop the bleeding, dammit, at least enough to give Wendy time to get her ass here (because he knows she will, she has to).

He flexes his numb fingers, rubs them together so spread some sensation back into them, blood drying under his nails, and calls on his magic. 'Lucy,’ he says gently, looking down to meet her eyes. She’s still looking up at him, and it feels like she’s clinging to him to stay awake, to stay alive. 'I’m sorry,’ he continues, 'but this is  _really_ going to hurt. Just. Try to bear it, okay?’

Lucy frowns, just a little, a barely formed 'huh?’ on her lips, before he takes his flaming hand to her wound.

The scream she lets out is something that is going to haunt him forever.

'I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ he says over and over again, but doesn’t stop. 'I have to stop the bleeding, Lucy, I’m sorry.’

And he holds her as tight as he can and makes sure to burn every inch, yelling for Wendy again between  _I’m sorry_ s.


	7. Day 7 - Freedom/Chained

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They broke each other free of the chains that threatened to drag them down into despair and darkness.

It’s something she thinks about from time to time, late at night when sleep eludes her.

If there is one true thing about their relationship, it’s that he broke her free from the far-reaching, entwining chains that kept her a sort of prisoner of her family’s name and legacy the day he invited her to join Fairy Tail and, she likes to believe, that she broke him free of the chains of fate to turn monstrous or vanish the day she rewrote his Book.

And that, Lucy thinks, is why they make such a good team, such a good pair. They both offered each other a freedom that they’d thought (more or less) unattainable, one that they’d needed more than they knew.

No matter how far she’d travelled, how many town she’d visited, she had still felt like there was a chain, a leash, wrapped around her throat until the day she’d met him. That day, he’d saved her in more ways than one. He’d freed her in ways he probably wouldn’t have imagined. And Lucy will forever be grateful to him for that.

Tonight is such a night. As she lays in her sleeping bag, looking up at the stars, Lucy wonders what her life would have been like if she’d never met Natsu, if he’d never been there to catch her when she fell, if he hadn’t taken her hand in his and offered her a world full of adventures. She looks over to where he’s resting against a tree, a mere three feet away, and she can’t imagine such a cruel life.

‘Hey, Natsu,’ she whispers into the night.

'Mm?’ he asks, but doesn’t open his eyes.

'Thank you,’ she says, simply.

There is a long moment of silence. And then, 'You’re such a weirdo,’ he says, smile in his voice. 'What’re you thanking me for? What’d I do?’

Lucy takes a breath, holds it. 'You set me free. You burned my shackles to cinders and set me free.’

He looks at her then, and maybe it’s just because of the flickering fire light that breaks the darkness around them, but she can’t read the look on his face.

'I was a bit afraid, you know,’ he says, looking away from her and into the flames. 'When I realized that that book really was connected to my life. When Zeref put a hole through it and it hurt like nothing ever had in my life.’

Lucy remembers the hole, and she remembers Happy bringing in an unconscious Natsu, and she remembers the world graying at edges and something like a vice wrapping around her throat and chest and arms and legs.

'And I guess I never managed to say thanks for what you did back then,’ he continues, looking back at her. 'So, thank you, Lucy, for saving my life, even when it was so painful for you.’ And at her surprised look, ‘Yeah, Gray told me about what rewriting that thing was doing to you.’

Lucy’s breath shudders out of her. She sits up, looking at their sleeping companions around them, and crawls next to Natsu, blanket trailing after her.

She settles down, head on his shoulder, and closes her eyes.  _Yes, this feels like freedom,_  she thinks as he wraps his arm around her.  _We’ll never be chained down again._


	8. Bonus Day - 100 Year Quest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Natsu and Lucy talk for a bit one evening, a few days after Team Natsu formally takes on the 100 Year Quest.

She hates the fact that they have to deal with dragons again, especially since supposedly, they’re just like Acnologia, just as powerful (just as terrifying). But Natsu’s excitement overshadows any fear, any doubt she might have, as it always tends to do.

She tells him so, a few nights after they’ve left Magia Dragon, as they keep watch around the campfire for the night.

‘So…’ she starts, looking up at the starry sky. ‘Dragons again, huh?’

Natsu seems lost in thought for a while, gaze transfixed on the flames in front of him. He hums quietly. 'I guess, yeah.’ Then, after another long moment of silence, he looks up at her, huge grin firmly in place. 'Can’t wait to kick their asses!’

Lucy can’t help rolling her eyes and laughing quietly at his enthusiasm. Still, even after  _everything_ , he’s  _still_  like this.

'Let’s hope that, whatever that old man said, they won’t be  _quite_  like Acnologia,’ she says, because she feels like it needs to be said. 'I don’t think my heart can handle it.’

Natsu laughs and throws an arm around her, pulling her close. 'Don’t worry so much,’ he tells her. 'As long as they don’t all appear at the same time, I’m pretty sure we can handle whatever comes our way!’

And really, it’s this confidence of his, and the smile that goes with it, and the warmth, that always makes Lucy’s heart race like nothing else.

'You’re right,’ she says, cheeks warm, smiling back. 'If Natsu says it, it  _must_  be true,’ She ducks her head and giggles into the skin of his neck.

He pulls her even closer at that, nuzzles her hair. ‘We’re going to have some awesome adventures from now on, too, just you wait!’

'Mhm,’ she sighs, content, comfortable, warm. 'Can’t wait!’


End file.
